Tag Archives: sacrificial love

Twilight: a story of love, sex and raw power………Part 2

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Just to recap this is my take on Stephanie Meyer’s book Twilight. You should probably read Part 1 before you read Part 2.

Bella’s Story
Bella is the fragile human female in the story of forbidden love. Whilst her physical body is small and frail in appearance and her physical aptitude leaves a lot to be desired Bella is still a very, very powerful young woman. In Part 1 I discussed the fact that we all want to be powerful and loved by a powerful other. I also said that equally powerful does not have to be mean that both have the same kind of power. Certainly Bella was physically weak, there was no way that she could match the speed and physical strength of her vampire love Edward. However, to dismiss her as weak and fragile on that basis is a huge mistake. The predatory vampire James made this mistake. He didn’t reckon on the ability and power of love to marshal around more love and support. Even the group of young men who were bent on rape underestimated her strength. It is interesting to note that they went after her in a pack – safety in numbers. What these two scenes portrayed was the plight of women who are abused by the greater physical prowess of men. The need for one consciousness to find the weakness of another and then exploit it. This is how humanity generally treats each other, the planet and all other creatures upon it. The greater physical prowess of men due to their genetics has been the excuse for centuries as labelling women as the weaker sex. The subjugation of women has largely been based upon one criteria and of course it is the criteria that women cannot usually dispute. On the foundation of this one attribute women have been labelled as less than and unequal in all areas of society in all cultures. This all reminds me of the analogy of the sea anemone in Part 1.

So we all can safely agree in the area of physicality Bella is weak, then what was her strength? Clearly she did have a strength, otherwise Edward would not have been so afraid of her. Bella possessed and gave the very powerful gift of unconditional love. She loved him even though she knew his nature and on top of that she unreservedly trusted him to not harm her. She trusted that he would not abuse the sacred vulnerability of love. Because she trusted Edward, she entered into relationship with him. Edward had to choose between shutting her out which could have included eating her for lunch or sitting with his own self-imposed inner demons so that he could be around Bella. Bella trusted Edward to do the right thing by her even when he didn’t trust himself. Bella brought him to life, he became more of a person or should I say vampire than he was before he met her. Bella embodied the gentle and yet at the same terrifying power of unconditional love. Bella caused Edward to step outside of his comfort zone, test his limits of self mastery, and self-resolve this was a very scary place for him. In the process he learnt among other things to trust himself. So really whose power was stronger? Does it really matter? You could do all these measurements to prove who was physically stronger or emotionally stronger, but does the outcome of either of these strengths justify calling another weaker. Does it matter what strength you possess does it give you the right to exercise it over another? Unfortunately just as much emotional and mental abuse goes on in our world as does physical abuse. Men are not the only potential abusers, they do however, have an institutionalized upper hand.

And the cost of abusing that which is weaker or vulnerable to your particular strength? You loose the opportunity to be loved and in relationship with another unique consciousness and all the personal nourishment and growth that can bring.  Its a funny thing most of us search for true love throughout our lives and yet we are terrified to face it when we find it.

Like Edward, Bella was also aware of how Edward, her mother and her father were vulnerable because of the love they had for her. Bella was very careful not to the violate the sacred space of love, so much so that she would rather die herself than let either of them die in an effort to save her. She was acutely aware of the vulnerability that came with loving and being loved and she wasn’t going to use that space as an opportunity for control and abuse of those that had opened their hearts to her.  In this regard Bella was fearless, she may have not been physically strong as vampire Edward, she may have been on the bottom of the preditory heap, but in the end she had more courage than all of them, she was not afraid to loose everything for love.

If you have a need to heal your sacred heart space so that you can open up to love without the need to control, manipulate or abuse, or alternatively you fear being hurt give me a call………………..

The nature of love

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Some much has been written about love, apart from money and sex it is humanity’s greatest pre-occupation.  Feeling unloved could be fairly labelled as the root of all evil in the world.  Money, sex and other material things in the end are just ways we try to make ourselves feel loved.  This is reflected in some new age thought which states that the absence of money equals you don’t love yourself enough. The vast majority of us are taught to look for love outside of ourselves rather than from within.  Once we are convinced that love is outside of ourselves then it can be used as a instruement of control and it is, mercilessly. 

The sad thing is that you could be in the presence of the greatest love in your life and not even know it.  Whether you can receive love, feel it, it’s up to you and your inner capacity to love yourself.

The theme that has been running through the conscious collective is love.  In particular self-centred love and sacrificial love.  Self-centred love is all about the individual, they don’t feel love for the inside. They are constantly seeking ways to obtain the trappings of love – money, recognition, time from others, success in their business and personal lives, but essentially, they never quite get what they are seeking.  These people do love others, but it is rarely a sacrificial love – because it is all about them, they are happy to love you providing the cost is not too great for them.  Unfortunately these people rarely feel  truly loved.   If you take away some of the trappings of love they feel angry and afraid.  This is exactly what is happening with the finacial crash at present.

Then there are those who love in a sacrificial way, these are the individuals that the first group usually attach themselves to.  Sacrificial love is about recognising that the Other is Self and if the Other is unhappy or disadvantaged in any way then the Self will also be unhappy etc.  This stems from concepts such as: we are all one and love your neighbour as you love yourself.  From a chistian point of view the greatest example of this is christ on the cross.  Personally I believe that no matter what christianty teaches about sacrificial love it is based on self-centred love which expects and in fact glorifies another individual taking on the consequences of their personal bad behaviour.  You cann’t get more self-centred than that. The problem for the Sacificial Lovers is that love rarely comes back to them.  The response of the Sacificial Lover is to do more to love more, be more accepting etc etc.  None of this works of course, it’s not in the nature of the Self-Centered Lover to give back unless there is something in it for them.  In the end the sacrificial lover has the same problem as the self-centred lover they are so busy loving others they forget to love themselves.

The theme in the clinic has been “sacrificial love”  is it all it’s cracked up to be?  Essentially yes and no.  Yes, because until we understand that we are a collective and therefore our personal actions impact upon everyone else we can never truly work as a collective that is for the benefit of the whole.  We all know what happens when nature gets out of balance.  Humanity stepped outside of balance a long time ago and constantly does not think or feel the impact of their actions on the total.  It’s all about me and my needs.  Lots of new age thought is also unfortunately all about me – the glorified “I am” it’s time to move on to interdependence. Environmental damage, species loss, poverty are all hallmarks of humanity being out of balance.   How humanity every thought it was above or different than the environment it is part of is a mystery to me.

 And No, because Sacrificial Love often steps in to save  others from their own consequences which is also very detrimental to all concerned.   Sacrificial Love often keeps on loving even when the self is destroyed – were is the good for all concerned in that action.  If we did not cut ourselves with a sharp knive when we used it inappropriately we would not receive the natural feedback – the consequence.  We would not learn, we would not evolve.  Evolution on every level is reliant upon feedback and consquencies.  Mother earth is the biggest example of unconditional, sacrificial love – the question is how much longer can she tolerate humanities current behaviour.  When will consequences become immediate?

In the end both types of lovers need a review of their style.  From my perspective it is usually those who are deeply spiritual who are the sacrificial lovers.  Which leads me the crux of the current theme – it’s time to clean up your act because in the end sacrificial lovers also crave love, often also feel just as unloved as the self-centred lover types.  The nature of sacrificial love as it is expressed in the world is part of the problem, imagine the difference if every time humanity tried to pollute the earth she rose us and immediately smacked them?

On a personal level – what are you a sacrificial lover or a self-centred lover either way it’s time to clean up!